My throat closed. What was I supposed to tell them? The truth? No. We weren’t supposed to talk about the Team. Apparently that hadn’t stopped Anita from blabbing to Xavier.
I cleared my throat. A touch of honesty was usually the best policy. “Before he died, Xavier told me about something in his possession that I need. Something very important to me. So I went in looking for it.”
Alice’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “Before the police went in?”
I gave her a pointed look. “Same as the two of y’all.” I sighed. Maybe these two old ladies could help me. You never knew. “It was on his computer but now it’s gone. I was looking at surveillance video when you two broke in. Someone came and stole it—after the murder. But I never found out who.”
Ruth and Alice exchanged another look. Ruth leaned over, cocking one eye wide. “Who are you? You show up in town, get to eat lunch with a ghost. Oh yes, we know all about that. Xavier tells you something, and you just hop on over to his place, sneak in and look over his cameras. Are you sure you didn’t kill him?”
Maybe I’d been wrong to place any faith in these two after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have told them. What was to stop them from going to the cops and telling what they knew—I’d been at the murder scene and then broke into Xavier’s house under suspicious circumstances, same as them.
The doorbell rang.
Alice’s eyes widened. Ruth’s turned to saucers. She gave me a look. “Nobody move.”
She disappeared to the front of the house. I heard the door open and shut. Voices drifted inside. A moment later Ruth reentered, followed by a tall redheaded woman.
The woman took turns glaring from Alice to me and then back to Alice. Her gaze darted back to me. She crossed her arms and sank to one hip. The woman oozed attitude out the wazoo.
“You must be the missing Blissful Breneaux.”
“That’s me,” I said.
She flashed a badge. “I’m Sheriff Kency Blount.”
Then it hit me. All at once. Captain Blount and Farmer Kency from the graveyard. “Your relatives didn’t like each other much, did they?”
She blinked. “No. What’s that got to do with anything?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just something I heard in town.”
She sniffed really hard, like she was trying to pull a booger up to her brain. “I didn’t think anyone spoke about it anymore.”
I hitched a shoulder. “Must’ve been something I heard randomly.”
She stared at me so long I think her goal was to intimidate me. I batted my eyelashes at her, trying to throw her off. “First thing in the morning I need you to come down to the station, give a statement on what happened tonight.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Xavier Bibb was murdered.”
I jumped from my chair. “No! That’s awful!”
Kency didn’t respond. Instead she skewered Alice and Ruth with her gaze. “And do the two of y’all care to tell me why in the world you broke into Xavier Bibb’s house tonight? And I’m assuming you took Miss Breneaux with you?”
Alice’s mouth opened and shut like a fish. Ruth held “uhhhhhh” so long it sounded like the only word she knew.
“We didn’t break in,” Ruth said.
Kency smirked. “I found your business card and heard what sounded like an ATV driving away from the house.”
Uh-oh. Think fast, Blissful.
“Sheriff, these ladies have been with me all night. I left the haunted house screaming, ran into them. I was so scared I started crying. Ruth and Alice, these nice old ladies, brought me back here where we talked about life, pantyhose and monogramming for the past few minutes. Ruth promised to teach me how to bake a chess pie.”
“Pecan,” Ruth said. “I don’t like chess.”
“I think it was peach,” Alice said.
